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Spirits

by Jerry Ousley
9/18/2026 / Christian Living

Spirits

By Jerry D. Ousley

We were quietly deeply involved in the show we were watching. My entire family was there as we enjoyed our movie. I can’t remember what it was, but I will never forget what happened as we watched. One moment we were quietly emersed in the story and in the very next moment we were all so startled that it was nearly unbelievable. In fact, I wouldn’t have believed it had I not been there. It was a crash and it came from our basement. It sounded like someone had turned over not just one, but several rows of shelves filled with canned goods. We all heard it.

Being the brave Dad that I was, with shaking knees, I attempted to hide my own fear, and proceeded to the basement to find out just what was going on. Fully expecting to see a mess (although we did not have shelves of canned goods), when I turned on the light and descended the steps, nothing was out of place. I looked around, scanning every wall to find out what had caused that noise. But nothing had fallen to the floor that wasn’t already there.

The concerning part was, this wasn’t the first time we had heard this type of noise in our house. We had lived there less than a year. Being Christians who were familiar with the Bible, we knew that we were experiencing evil spirits. Some would say ghosts and that our house was haunted. But from what we knew about the Bible, we knew differently.

It came to a climax one morning. I had awakened and had gotten ready for work before anyone else got up. My wife arose next. As she was getting ready for her own work day as I sat in my chair in the living room. A short hallway to my left connected the two bedrooms with the bathroom directly between them. Often our daughter, who was probably four, would wake up while we were getting ready and would travel the short hallway from her bedroom to ours, climb into bed and lay there until time for her to get up. Sitting in my chair, my peripheral vision picked up a white clad figure moving from our daughter’s room to ours. I didn’t suspect anything out of the normal, that is until my wife went to awaken our daughter. She proceeded to her room and I spoke up, “I just saw her go into our room.” But she was in her own room. When she was awake enough to reason with, I discovered that she had not gone into our room. That was it. Something had to be done. That evening, after we were both home from work, we went from room to room, top to bottom and asked God to cast those evil spirits from our home. I can say that (at least until we moved) I never experienced anything again.

In speaking about spirits, I realize that the word can signify anything from an attitude to an actual manifestation. Before we go any further, I want us to look at a passage of scripture which says, “Beloved, do not believe every spirit, but test the spirits, whether they are of God; because many false prophets have gone out into the world. By this you know the Spirit of God: Every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is not of God. And this is the spirit of the Antichrist, which you have heard was coming, and is now already in the world. You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. They are of the world. Therefore they speak as of the world, and the world hears them. We are of God. He who knows God hears us; he who is not of God does not hear us. By this we know the spirit of truth and the spirit of error.” (1 John 4:1-6).

We know that there are evil spirits in the world. We also know that the emotions, attitudes and influences that stream from us carry weight, not only on us, but also on others. And there are angels from God that serve the will of God the Father, more often than not, silently in the background.

This subject cannot possibly be covered in the confines of a short article and should be a book (hmmm, you may see that sometime in the future), but to put it in a nutshell, there are three main spirits at work in this world in which we live. There is, of course, the great, grand and wonderful Spirit of God – The Holy Spirit. He is the positive influence in our world. He lives inside each believer who is saved from the curse of sin, death and hell – Those identified as Christians. He is the positive influence in the world.

Then there is the spirit of man. With God we choose to operate under the influence of God’s Holy Spirit (or at least we should). We follow His plan to show the world the goodness of God.

But, should we choose to follow the final spirit we are about to discuss, that of the devil, then we see the physical evidence of it all over our planet. We see war. We see bigotry. We see hate. We see sin running rampant and demanding respect even when God says it is wrong. We see evil that proceeds from man’s heart.

That evil is the result of the third spirit we want to mention – that of the devil – the evil one, the one who influenced the first couple, Adam and Eve, to sin and bring the calamity to the world to which we have been enslaved ever since. The spirit of Satan runs rampant and out of control on our planet. He sends his imps – those creatures we call demons – in effort to control man, and we might as well face it, he’s done a pretty good job at being evil. From hauntings to demon possession, he is the author of it all.

But we can overcome him. We are not more powerful than he is. But just like the verse in the passage we quoted, we overcome him because He who is in us is greater than he who is in the world. That includes both man and the devil. God is greater. But in our individual lives, we must yield to Him. We do that by accepting the plan of salvation paid for by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. He paid the required penalty for sin, and He conquered sin, death, hell and the grave by His resurrection. By believing in Him and the work He has done, we can overcome Satan and his evil kingdom of demons and evil spirits. Note again, we can’t do that in ourselves, but only in Jesus Christ. He is greater because He has commissioned the Holy Spirit to live in us. We only need to listen to Him, allow Him to work in our lives, and then to let Him influence our influence.

First, be saved. Then try the spirits to be sure they are from God. Listen to the Holy Spirit inside of us – by the way, we can know it is Him because He will not lead you into anything that does not agree with the written Word of God. Then act on what we know from what He speaks in our hearts and what we read in the Word. Then you can know who is at work in our lives and what is the final Spirit!

Jerry D. Ousley is the author of "Soul Challenge", "Soul Journey", "Ordeal", "The Spirit Bread Daily Devotional" and his first novel "The Shoe Tree." Newer books include "Finality" and "Dividing God's Church." Visit our website at spiritbread.com to download these and more completely free of charge

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

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